Episode 531: Leslie John: Oversharing as a Competitive Advantage in Leadership and Negotiation

We've been conditioned to believe that saying less is safer. But playing it safe costs trust, influence, stronger negotiations, and deeper relationships because the line between "too much" and meaningful connection is further out than we think. In the latest episode of Habits & Hustle, I'm joined by author Leslie John to break down the exact tipping point where leader vulnerability backfires, why holding your cards close in negotiation weakens your leverage, and how pushing slightly past your comfort zone builds real authority. Leslie John is the James E. Burke Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and author of Revealing: The Underrated Power of Oversharing. Her award-winning research appears in top academic journals and media including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Economist. What's Discussed (04:00) Why oversharing feels risky but builds stronger relationships and influence (06:31) The difference between emotional dumping and strategic vulnerability (18:23) Disclosure flexibility and knowing when to reveal versus hold back (20:55) Why long term relationships erode when partners stop sharing (27:15) How strategic transparency increases trust and customer retention (28:50) The most common negotiation mistake: leading with concealment (34:03) Leader vulnerability and the tipping point where credibility drops (41:01) Authenticity versus impulse and why emotional intelligence matters Thank you to our sponsors: Rho Nutrition: Try Rho Nutrition today and experience the difference of Liposomal Technology. Use code JEN20 for 20% OFF everything at https://rhonutrition.com/discount/jen20. Prolon: Get 30% off sitewide plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their 5-Day Program! Just visit https://prolonlife.com/JENNIFERCOHEN and use code JENNIFERCOHEN to claim your discount and your bonus gift. Therasage: Head over to therasage.com and use code Be Bold for 15% off Air Doctor: Go to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code HUSTLE40 for up to $300 off and a 3-year warranty on air purifiers. Magic Mind: Head over to www.magicmind.com/jen and use code Jen at checkout. Momentous: Shop this link and use code Jen for 20% off Manna Vitality: Visit mannavitality.com and use code JENNIFER20 for 20% off your order Amp fit is the perfect balance of tech and training, designed for people who do it all and still want to feel strong doing it. Check it out at joinamp.com/jen Find more from Jen: Website: https://jennifercohen.com Instagram: @therealjencohen http://instagram.com/therealjencohen Books: https://jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagement Find more from Leslie John: Website: https://lesliekjohn.com Instagram: @proflesliejohn https://www.instagram.com/proflesliejohn/ Youtube: @ProfLeslieJohn https://www.youtube.com/@ProfLeslieJohn X: @ProfLeslieJohn https://x.com/ProfLeslieJohn

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.

• 0:07Jen Cohen?

  All right, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Habits and Hustle, and we have a very special guest. Number one, she's Canadian.

• 0:15Speaker 02

  All that matters, right?

• 0:16Jen Cohen?

  All that matters, and she lived in Winnipeg for many years. But really, she's exceptionally impressive. Not only is she like a professional dancer, which of course is her background when she was younger. This woman is a professor at Harvard. She is, I guess, she's a behavioral scientist, and she is an expert in decision making. So, and also, she has a new book out. And her new book is called, her new book is called "The Underrated Power of Oversharing", actually, "Revealing" is the title, and then "The Underrated Power of Oversharing". So I guess we're going to talk all about the power of oversharing on this episode, and everything in between. So thank you for being on the show.

• 0:54Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me.

• 0:55Jen Cohen?

  This is exciting. First of all, I love anything when I see the word "behavioral", behavioral psychologist, scientist. I'm like fascinated by how the human psyche works, the brain works, and given that your background is, I was saying before we started, you're a dancer plus the Harvard. I mean, your attention to detail and discipline must be off the charts.

• 1:18Speaker 02

  I drive myself crazy sometimes.

• 1:21Jen Cohen?

  Well, listen, I love it. So I'm here for it. So before we start, we do this thing on here. We basically take a shot. It's a mental performance shot to keep you super, kind of, I guess, very, basically very focused, and you don't need it, though. I would highly doubt someone with your background. But let's do it anyway.

• 1:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm excited.

• 1:42Jen Cohen?

  So we basically, cheers. Yours actually has no caffeine. Mine has caffeine.

• 1:46Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:46Jen Cohen?

  Are you okay with caffeine?

• 1:48Speaker 02

  Not right. That's too late.

• 1:49Jen Cohen?

  Okay, good.

• 1:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a good choice. Thank you.

• 1:51Jen Cohen?

  You're welcome. I'm going to have to only just take a little off. I'm going to be up all night. Not like there's so much of it, but. Hmm. I better be careful. I literally had like four today. So I'm not gonna have any more. It's good though, right?

• 2:02Speaker 02

  Hmm. That's delicious.

• 2:05Jen Cohen?

  I know. Isn't it delicious? And it's very, it's, it's all very good quality ingredients. It's like

• 2:10Speaker 02

  And it's sugar free.

• 2:11Jen Cohen?

  Yes, of course. That one, yes.

• 2:13Speaker 02

  It's like natural sweetness. What is?

• 2:15Jen Cohen?

  It's like

• 2:15Speaker 02

  I know now.

• 2:15Jen Cohen?

  Behind me.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  You were complaining about your eyes. I'm like

• 2:17Jen Cohen?

  I know. I'm literally blind, by the way, now. Literally. I don't know. Like within like

• 2:21Speaker 02

  Whatever it is, it's good.

• 2:21Jen Cohen?

  What? It's very good. One day I'm, I can see the next day I'm blind. So, all right, let's get into it because I have so many questions for you. And I want to start with the obvious. Okay. So I have to use my phone here, but the real, let's start at the beginning. Like, why is oversharing actually underrated?

• 2:40Speaker 02

  Ah, yes.

• 2:41Jen Cohen?

  And then we'll, and then we'll kind of go through, we'll go down the rabbit hole.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  Great, great, great. I love rabbit holes. So it's, it's something that I think we feel, I mean, the word oversharing, it's a very loaded term. We feel a lot of shame about.

• 2:53Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 2:53Speaker 02

  And we shouldn't because there's so much redemption in even our most outrageous, cringey blurts often. I know.

• 3:02Jen Cohen?

  Yes, so do I.

• 3:03Speaker 02

  And I think that once, like, we live in fear of TMI, right? Which sucks. Like, you, we've all feel, felt that, like, disclosure hangover of like, oh, my God, what did I do last night? But what we

• 3:16Jen Cohen?

  Where they say last night.

• 3:17Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 3:18Jen Cohen?

  Yes.

• 3:19Speaker 02

  But what we often don't appreciate is that there's so many wonderful benefits of being a little more open. Like, sharing your most embarrassing story, which I one did, once did to some very senior people, definitely had a disclosure hangover. But then those two people became some of my closest friends and strongest mentors. Like, there's, opening up gets us so much. It gets us better relationships, better wellbeing, even influence when you're thinking of leaders and persuasion.

• 3:47Jen Cohen?

  Well, let me start with saying this. Okay, so First of all, the TMI, I think because also we're living in a, in a society and culture where social media is so prevalent.

• 3:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:56Jen Cohen?

  And oversharing is just like at its all time high, right? What is the difference between, I guess, emotionally just like vomiting on somebody and just oversharing in a very positive way?

• 4:09Speaker 02

  Oh, I love that. What do you mean by oversharing in a positive way?

• 4:12Jen Cohen?

  Because I do, I think, and even after reading your book and, and my own, my own personal experience and opinion, I think there is a real benefit to being vulnerable and being open because it makes people feel closer to you. It makes them feel like there's, there, that you're not hiding as much and all those things.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:30Jen Cohen?

  But there is a very fine line between doing that and then I think giving people too much information.

• 4:36Speaker 02

  100%.

• 4:37Jen Cohen?

  Where it becomes uncomfortable and awkward for the other people. And in your experience, when you became very close with your seniors, a lot of times it could be the opposite where people feel like actually they, they're, they're kind of like, they recoil because it's too much information.

• 4:51Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, totally. And I think, yeah, TMI is a thing.

• 4:55Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  I think we worry too much about it and not enough about TLI, too little information. But there's a lot of like rules or norms of disclosure. So this vomiting of emotions is, is too much too soon. It's, you know, it's like when, when you, you're forging a new friendship with someone and the person never asks you a question, they never pass the torch to you. And so the sequencing, especially in, when we don't know someone well in early relationships, it's really important that we reveal, but together slowly, gradually deepening. If someone does it out of turn and vomits everything, then it's, it's TMI and it's off putting and it can signal, can signal, signal a lot of things about the person that they might not be available, so to speak, to be a friend or a colleague or a partner.

• 5:41Jen Cohen?

  So what are some parameters that people can like learn and work through or strategies?

• 5:45Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 5:46Jen Cohen?

  Because, you know, if you're not self-aware enough to know where that, where that boundary is, you can get yourself into trouble.

• 5:51Speaker 02

  Completely.

• 5:53Speaker 02

  I I loved the term you use, the like positive oversharing. And that is so something that I think we chronically undershare. And it's a very easy thing for people who are like, I don't know how to share more. What does this mean? I'm suspicious, which is fair. Praise. So think of all the positive thoughts you had. Like, look at this gorgeous window in the beautiful backyard and the lush foliage. Right? Like, you think of all these lovely thoughts during the day. And we often keep them to ourselves. But what if if you if you if you are bonding with someone, you're starting to like them? If you just say, hey, I like you. I did that once when I was at dinner with close friends and then a couple of acquaintances. And the one woman I said to her, I'm like, yeah, I like you.

• 6:36Speaker 02

  And she was a little caught off guard because it's a little odd, but it's pretty safe. You know, praising someone is not vomiting all of your innermost thoughts and feelings. It's a positive thing. And so you will find, I mean, and I've been experimenting. This book is like an experiment in life where I've been trying new things. And one of the things I've been trying is like just saying the positive thing out loud. Like someone, I love their haircut, walking down the street. I love your haircut.

• 7:00Jen Cohen?

  So that's different. So when I think of oversharing, right? And when I first saw the title of your book, what I initially thought was like oversharing private details about one's life.

• 7:11Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 7:12Jen Cohen?

  I never thought about, you know, being outwardly complimentary.

• 7:16Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 7:17Jen Cohen?

  Before I before you came here, I was actually doing another podcast with someone else. And I was I was talking about the idea that when I naturally, when I'm very, I just, I'm like that, I'm very blunt and I blur things out. But like, if I notice something positive about somebody.

• 7:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:33Jen Cohen?

  No matter what, I don't care if they're a guy, a girl, whatever. I will just tell them what it is. It could be like, I like your shoes. I like your haircut. You have a good laugh. I think that that disarms people.

• 7:44Speaker 02

  Completely, yeah.

• 7:45Jen Cohen?

  And so like, and it's not being, it's being genuine. I'm not just, I'm not being, it's not contrived.

• 7:50Speaker 02

  That's core, yeah.

• 7:50Jen Cohen?

  Right, that's core. It's very, it's not being contrived.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:53Jen Cohen?

  And that can connect people because like you're disarming someone and you're allowing them the ability to kind of then feel like, oh, wow, like in their head, like, oh, they like me, I like, I could, I could be my. Myself or it gives a positive feeling.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 8:06Jen Cohen?

  That's different than oversharing.

• 8:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, totally. So when we think of oversharing, you're exactly hit the nail on the head. We think of, you know, sharing your deepest, darkest insecurities, vulnerabilities, feelings.

• 8:18Jen Cohen?

  Fears.

• 8:18Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 8:19Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 8:19Speaker 02

  Um, taboo things, like all kinds of things. And um, so even then, when you think of oversharing in that classic form, I think we're too scared of it.

• 8:30Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 8:31Speaker 02

  Because it can do so many things. And as I was, you know, you, you had asked me as we were, we were coming to the studio about like how I got here, this idea. And it actually, I, I did a 180 where the first part of my career, I studied, I, I call myself a recovering privacy expert because what I studied was so narrow, the way academics do. I can make fun of academics as one. And so I studied, like I saw all these, it was the early 2000s and you see people, you know, posting things on Facebook, which sounds so old to say now, but like, you know, Virgin Atlantic flight attendants venting about their

• 9:09Speaker 02

  company and then they get fired, like all of these, these classic stupid sharing. And, and I was, and so I had all the tinkering and was doing all these studies showing, oh, we share like when it's dangerous and at the wrong time and we're duped by companies and, and, and stop, stop, stop, stop doing that. But the, which wasn't wrong, but it wasn't right either because over the years I had this kind of growing disconnect that I couldn't suppress anymore. That came into consciousness, which was there was my professional life and then my personal life. I'm a, I'm super blurtatious. I'm like, I, I, I have spoiled three surprise parties.

• 9:46Speaker 02

  Like I'm just, it's very hard. And, and I thought, but it's, there's, you know, I, I think I have a really high quality of life and I'm very happy and I have close friends. And there's, there's just something more to this. Like there's something deeply right about what we're doing, about sharing a lot. Now, it's not to say we should always tell everyone our deepest, darkest, darkest secrets, but then I, as I was thinking about this more, you know, you just kind of like become obsessed with the idea. And it made me realize how every day we have disclosure, we decide every day what to share, what not to share. And so often we decide, maybe not you because you're wonderfully unusual, but to not say like, someone asks how you are and you feel like shit, you don't say that.

• 10:27Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 10:27Speaker 02

  Right? And so

• 10:28Jen Cohen?

  We never tell the honest truth.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, and, and we shouldn't always tell the honest truth. That, that's problematic in, in the other way, but there just is, is so much, so much hiding and, and undersharing. And what if we shared a bit more? And then, then I noticed, you know, some, how can you write a book about revealing without revealing yourself? And so there were times in my life when I thought, like I insulted in my Harvard interview, I insulted, and this was inadvertent, not strategic at all, but again, one of these flirtatious things. And I insulted my interviewer. I basically called him fat.

• 11:00Jen Cohen?

  What did you say?

• 11:01Speaker 02

  I saw, so he was, oh, he was, he was trying to make me feel comfortable because I was super nervous. I walk into this, it's in a hotel suite. Like it's very bizarre, but normal for academia.

• 11:12Jen Cohen?

  Harvard interview?

• 11:13Speaker 02

  Yes. It's at a big nerd jamboree. I know. It's so weird and sketchy. Anyways, all of the universities interview in, in hotel rooms.

• 11:22Jen Cohen?

  It's named Harvey Weinstein.

• 11:24Speaker 02

  I know. This was like a long, this was 2010. So I don't, you know, they might still do it though.

• 11:30Jen Cohen?

  Really? They would interview in a, in a, in a hotel room?

• 11:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. So every university gets their little hotel room and they, the candidates come in one by one and it's usually mostly men. Once I was in, once I went to, I won't say the name of the university, but I go into the room and it's a normal room, two senior academics lounging on the beds with their shoes off, like they were clothed.

• 11:49Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 11:49Speaker 02

  It was just so, yeah.

• 11:51Jen Cohen?

  And you were in for an interview? That's so weird.

• 11:53Speaker 02

  I know. So, so many things, right?

• 11:56Jen Cohen?

  That's so awkward.

• 11:56Speaker 02

  But the Harvard one, they had a suite. So that was lovely. It was like a little more professed because it was less lounging on beds.

• 12:04Jen Cohen?

  Well, the sofa set.

• 12:05Speaker 02

  Right. All men.

• 12:07Jen Cohen?

  Okay. Were they wearing clothing or like?

• 12:08Speaker 02

  They were, and they were all suited up.

• 12:10Jen Cohen?

  Okay.

• 12:11Speaker 02

  And it was, and it was a lot of men. It was like, it was like over power. It was like nine men. It was like, there's a lot of men, you know, and, and so I was, I was nervous and I, because one of my, the mentors who I told a very embarrassing story to a long time ago, and we became close, he was there and I know he like used social capital. So I felt like this was like, I actually had a chance. And so when I get nervous, I get even more unfiltered. It's terrible. And

• 12:39Jen Cohen?

  I think everyone though does.

• 12:40Speaker 02

  Maybe, maybe. I don't know. My husband's the opposite. I, yeah. But anyway, so I sit down and, and the, who became a beloved colleague, he's valiantly trying to make me feel more comfortable. So he looks at my resume and he's like, oh, you're a ballet dancer. I used to be one too. And then I just, in that moment, I don't know why I decided to do it. It's like some primal weird, maybe I am a jerk down inside. I don't know. But I just, I looked him up and down. I cocked my head and I said, clearly, like the most sassy, and he's, he's kind of portly. So it was like, oh, and then like I faced her in bright red and I'm just like, oh my God, get me out of here.

• 13:21Jen Cohen?

  What did he say?

• 13:22Speaker 02

  I just like poured gasoline on myself and lit it. I'm like, this is, please, I want to leave. There was like awkward laughter and then someone got me a drink. Unfortunately, it was non-alcoholic, but we got through it. But, and then they hired me. And you know, the colleague, and he became a super close, dear friend of mine. He just retired. And he would love, whenever there were new candidates, he would all, he would love telling the story. He's like, you know, when she insulted me like that, we thought, she'll fit in, she'll fit, fit right in here. She's a jerk too. Like she can

• 13:53Jen Cohen?

  That's hilarious. Well, that's also to your point, when you're like, you never really know how people are going to react to how you reveal what you reveal.

• 14:02Speaker 02

  Right.

• 14:03Jen Cohen?

  And I guess to your, like, I guess you would think that that would have had like a negative

• 14:07Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 14:08Jen Cohen?

  response. And he actually like, like liked it.

• 14:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:12Jen Cohen?

  And thought it was funny.

• 14:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:14Jen Cohen?

  And it made you guys kind of bond.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  I mean, in the moment, I think he was like

• 14:16Jen Cohen?

  Hot, a little bit taken aback.

• 14:17Speaker 02

  jar and maybe a little offended because it's a lot.

• 14:18Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 14:19Speaker 02

  But then it was like, oh my God, this was hilarious.

• 14:21Jen Cohen?

  But also you did have social capital with the other guy.

• 14:24Speaker 02

  I did, I did. So, so that was, that was a, a good extenuating circumstance too.

• 14:30Jen Cohen?

  Exactly.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  But, but yeah, so episodes like that, like I was reflecting a lot and I'm, and I thought, and that's part of it too, that like, if you never experiment, the answer isn't like, say jerky things to people, but if, if you don't experiment saying the thing, then, then you can't kind of falsify the overblown fears you have of TMI.

• 14:49Jen Cohen?

  But I think that maybe it's not really oversharing though, it's more about being open and receptive to like a back and forth, like to be like, having an earnest way of like communicating.

• 15:02Speaker 02

  Right, and, and being like open, open minded, yeah.

• 15:04Jen Cohen?

  I think it's about open or being vulnerable, you know, not to overuse that word, I know that word's been very overplayed, vulnerability, but at the same time, it is about that, because I think, again, it's about when you let your guard down, you're allowing other people to let their guard down.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 15:19Jen Cohen?

  But I still push back on the fact that that's not so much, like when, literally when I think of oversharing, it's like saying, if I even saying that comment that you said to the professor, it's more about like, saying like something like, kind of like, really, like just has zero to do with what the circumstances is, and like talking about something and you're like, you know, like, oh yeah, when that guy dumped me because after we had sex and this is, whatever it was, you know what I mean?

• 15:41Speaker 02

  That's not good sharing.

• 15:42Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

• 15:43Speaker 02

  Definitely, TMI is alive and well.

• 15:45Jen Cohen?

  Exactly.

• 15:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 15:47Jen Cohen?

  But there is, and, and you talk about this, you, you talk about revealers and concealers.

• 15:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:52Jen Cohen?

  And I would imagine, people who are revealers are people who, people gravitate to versus concealing, because again, when you feel like, when you also, when you feel that people are like hiding something or they're not forthright, it doesn't bring you close to them.

• 16:08Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, but at the same time, to your point, you, you also avoid the person who like, trauma dumps, like it just is like, all about me all the time, right? And so, I think the most healthy way to be and the most desirable in terms of people wanting to be friends with you and most fulfilling is, are the people that have a lot of disclosure flexibility, which is to say, People that that modulate between the extremes, they go super, super deep with their partners. They tell their partners all their fears, their thoughts and feelings. And then they're very reserved in context, like super competitive professional context, when it behooves you to be to be really reserved. So it's about kind of, it's not like one size fits all.

• 16:52Speaker 02

  We should be revealers all the time or concealers. It's, most of us would benefit from opening up a little bit more, but we need to practice revealing and not revealing in lots of contexts so that we can kind of get a better feel for for what's the right amount in which situation. That's why it's not so simple, right?

• 17:09Jen Cohen?

  Okay, so give us some, give us some examples of when to be a revealer and when to be a concealer.

• 17:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, so as I was writing the book, I, it's interesting because your, your point about like, what is oversharing? And I have always thought of myself as an overshare. And then as I was writing the book, I thought, oh, you know, I love sharing. It's fun. I don't know, maybe this is my messed up psychology, but it's fun sharing self deprecating jokes about myself and like funny stories. I enjoy that. And and I've thought of myself as an overshare because of that. But then as I got really into it, I thought, wow, I'm actually not, I'm not sharing the really important stuff. You know? And so I think when I say like the underrated power of oversharing, that's what I mean.

• 17:57Speaker 02

  I mean, most of us stand to to really open ourselves up, be vulnerable in the right time with the right person. There's been some, one really sad, but it's changed, writing this, I know it's cheesy to say, it has changed my life, it has improved my marriage. It was great to begin with, but it's, one of the things I learned as I was writing the book is that lots, long term relationships, marriages, most of the time, they don't break down because of some dramatic affair or, which is horrible. A lot of the time, what happens is that people grow further apart. And then a rabbit hole, rabbit hole, why, why? Will they stop sharing? Why do they stop sharing? It's the easiest person to share with. It's your spouse. Super safe person.

• 18:42Speaker 02

  And I realize what happens is when you, it's a cognitive bias. When you are with someone for a long time, you know them really well. And the longer you're with them, the more you know them. But the problem is that your confidence that you know them outsizes your actual knowledge. So the longer you're with someone, you think you know them better than you do. And that's where the problem begins, right? Because then you're like, I don't need to ask questions. I don't need to learn. I can read their mind. They can read my mind. Like, saying it out loud is ridiculous. Like, no, people can't read my mind. But, but it's this implicit belief. And then you stop sharing. And then, and as soon as I, there's even a scale. Right, I went lots of rabbit holes. There's a scale, you know, psychologists have a scale for everything, that measures how strong of a mind reader, how much you believe in mind reading.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  So the belief that, kind of this overly romanticized belief that your partner should just know what you want all the time.

• 19:33Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 19:34Speaker 02

  And then I took that myself, and I'm super high in it. And as soon as I learned that about myself, I'm like, oh, wow. I am not telling Colin that I feel anxious about something. He can't read my mind. It's not that he's a jerk. He just doesn't know what I'm feeling. And so I realized all these things where I thought he was being insensitive and like empathic failures was just because he can't read my mind.

• 19:56Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  And we're not different than studies. They've had studies of couples who've loved each other for like 12 years, longer than either of my marriages. And, and even couples who've loved each other for at least 12 years. When they do exercises where they try to like intuit what their partner is thinking and feeling, they get it wrong 80% of the time. And so like-

• 20:15Jen Cohen?

  That high.

• 20:16Speaker 02

  Yes. And so it's like that, like completely was a paradigm shift for me. It was like what feels like over communicating is just communicating.

• 20:25Jen Cohen?

  That is, that is really incredible. I didn't realize-

• 20:27Speaker 02

  I know, me neither.

• 20:28Jen Cohen?

  That number is so high. And it's so true. It's like you become, you not like necessarily taking them for granted, but you're so accustomed and used to them being around that you feel like you know every step of

• 20:38Speaker 02

  Right.

• 20:38Jen Cohen?

  what they're gonna do, how they're gonna do it.

• 20:40Speaker 02

  Right.

• 20:41Jen Cohen?

  And you actually don't.

• 20:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, especially their feelings.

• 20:45Jen Cohen?

  The feelings, yes.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  You know their values, you know their personality traits, the things that are pretty-

• 20:50Jen Cohen?

  Or their daily habits.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, the stable things about the person, but are when you think of the the day in the life of my feelings, like, well, they don't go up and down that much, but there's a lot of variation, right?

• 21:00Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  And they're so internal and private.

• 21:03Jen Cohen?

  So then, okay, so this is still interesting because you're saying like you started off as being like an expert in decision making.

• 21:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:10Jen Cohen?

  And privacy.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, and like decision making mistakes and how we suck.

• 21:14Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, no, exactly.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  So negative.

• 21:15Jen Cohen?

  All these things are but have nothing really to do with oversharing.

• 21:20Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 21:21Jen Cohen?

  I still-

• 21:21Speaker 02

  Uh huh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:22Jen Cohen?

  Where is the bridge?

• 21:23Speaker 02

  It's interesting. That's so fascinating. So I think of privacy as like what I had done for the first was like, look at these people online oversharing. They're saying things they shouldn't be saying. They're making mistakes. They're sharing-

• 21:37Jen Cohen?

  But how did you begin to that?

• 21:38Speaker 02

  Get into the-

• 21:39Jen Cohen?

  Like, like, how does that even become like a an area?

• 21:42Speaker 02

  An area, I know.

• 21:43Jen Cohen?

  Like, you're like, where did you go to school?

• 21:45Speaker 02

  In Canada, and then-

• 21:47Jen Cohen?

  But where in Canada?

• 21:48Speaker 02

  Uh, University of Waterloo.

• 21:49Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 21:50Speaker 02

  And that's where I learned, like, I just gravitated towards psychology. It's amazing how like some professors, they're just, I don't even know if it's the topic. I wonder if it's the the quality of the instructor, right, that they're just so passionate about it. So I got really into it. And then I went to grad school.

• 22:03Jen Cohen?

  And where'd you go to grad school?

• 22:04Speaker 02

  Carnegie Mellon. And I remember, I remember, so it was like, I want to say it was like 2006. And I remember sitting in the lab doing my like statistical analyses and my friend beside me, she's like, look, this is Facebook. And I'm like, what? I I just, it was like this totally strange, alien thing. I'm like, I don't understand this. What's a wall? Why are you doing that? Like, I just, I did not get it. And so I'm like, this doesn't commute. So then I was like, I need to understand this. And because I was like, because I was so unfamiliar, like, the frame is a negative for, and isn't it amazing how the frame that you approach something with has such- profound effect on how you interpret it.

• 22:42Jen Cohen?

  It's all about framing and reframing.

• 22:44Speaker 02

  Framing is so powerful.

• 22:45Jen Cohen?

  But that's why they say like in order like how you behave is all about the frame or you've got to reframe.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  Completely. It's so powerful.

• 22:53Jen Cohen?

  Right. I know. It's true.

• 22:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:55Jen Cohen?

  It's all about reframing.

• 22:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:57Jen Cohen?

  Okay. So you see this crazy Facebook. What is this whole thing? People are like posting their like children and all their private things on this crazy wall for the whole world to see.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:05Jen Cohen?

  This is weird.

• 23:05Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:06Jen Cohen?

  I'm going to go into being a privacy expert.

• 23:08Speaker 02

  Right. Exactly.

• 23:10Jen Cohen?

  Okay.

• 23:10Speaker 02

  And then there were people, scholars there who studied it from different, from like a purely economics lens.

• 23:16Jen Cohen?

  Okay.

• 23:16Speaker 02

  And I was the kind of weird psychology person. And so we kind of fused our minds together and started doing all kinds of experiments.

• 23:23Jen Cohen?

  But then how did you end up at Harvard? Besides this guy that was a social.

• 23:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:27Jen Cohen?

  You know, lubricant for you.

• 23:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I mean, and we started, we did research together. And so I was kind of a known entity. I started doing research with them early on. But then, um, yeah, so I, I mean, I, I feel like I, I worked very hard. I also got lucky, you know, it's, there's so many qualified people for these jobs.

• 23:45Jen Cohen?

  But what were you teaching? What was your class?

• 23:46Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. So I, I actually taught marketing. I know, I'm like, you're never going to be able to compute my straight. It's like a completely jagged. You cut all this. It's a very jagged, jagged path.

• 23:57Jen Cohen?

  Okay.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  But, um.

• 23:58Jen Cohen?

  Marketing.

• 23:59Speaker 02

  But I, but I, you know, I think, I think in hindsight, it may seem less jagged to me at least, because this fundamental thing about making yourself known, knowing others is so core to so many things in life. It's core to marketing, like knowing your customers is like really core. How, how do you know them? What do you, how do you communicate with them? What do you tell them that you know about them? And, and so we did all kinds of studies on that too. And when companies reveal, when companies overshare by, we did these big experiments with banks where they, and, and where they were selling their credit cards on, they had credit card webpages and they, in one study, we said, what if you actually made the downsides really salient?

• 24:40Speaker 02

  Like normally credit card website, when you're buying a credit card, it's like, oh, this is an amazing little rate or a great points. But what if, and the fine print is, but what if you were more transparent? What if you made it so? Super standing that, hey, the fees suck. And so we convinced this, my colleague, Ryan Buhl, and I convinced this company, a large Australian company, to do an experiment. And it turned out when they were forthcoming, when they overshared, that would be, I would think that would be like a company oversharing. That's like information on like, you're basically saying like, don't buy this.

• 25:07Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 25:08Speaker 02

  And when they did that, the customers trust them more. And then they actually are more likely to stay on. It's a really powerful customer retention tool. So this is all to say that, I know it's a very jagged path, but there is this thread of like, you know, and then you like, I teach negotiation. And what's negotiation? The people that are the best negotiators are the people that can understand what they value and what their counterparts value. And that requires strategic sharing, managing what to share, what not to share. And teaching that, or I've been teaching that for like 10 years now. The single most common mistake in negotiation is that people don't share enough because they're scared of it because they're like, I think this person's going to rip me off. And that's true sometimes, but so often it's not true.

• 25:52Speaker 02

  And it's, if you start by being concealy, very technical term.

• 25:57Jen Cohen?

  Very.

• 25:58Speaker 02

  Concealment gets, begets concealment. And then it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. If you start by saying, look, this is what I want in this deal and these are my values. These are the things I care about. These are the things I care about less. Now you're off to the races because then they can say, oh, you don't care about that. I care a lot and I care less about the thing you want and we can trade, right? So.

• 26:16Jen Cohen?

  So you're saying be straightforward in a negotiation and not be concealy, as you put it?

• 26:21Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 26:21Jen Cohen?

  Is actually more beneficial to the deal?

• 26:23Speaker 02

  Nine times out of 10, yes. There's for sure, there's a, there's, I'm not saying we should reveal everything in a negotiation, far from it, but the default we have of like, wall, that's what I see again.

• 26:35Jen Cohen?

  Like holding your cards close to the vest.

• 26:37Speaker 02

  Right. Executives, like they're top of their game and they come, they come, they come to the first session and they're like guns ablazing and they're like, okay, it's a competition and ah, like. Guard up and then then I tell them, well, what if you ask and answer questions? And then we put the, because I like data and numbers, we put the results on the board. The people that are more forthcoming, they don't get ripped off. They actually get better deals because they figure out what each other wants. And then they realize they can both have what they want in many cases, not all cases for sure. Not all cases, but.

• 27:10Jen Cohen?

  Well, it was interesting also, what I what I noticed also, besides the negotiation is like, I was going to say this earlier about, and I don't know why this came up when I when I was like researching you, but like how companies who market though to only women actually repel women.

• 27:27Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Well, right, and that's so, that's a paper we did. It's called, um, well, I don't know if they let it, the publisher let us use the name we wanted to use. It was like, it was like Beer for Chicks or something. And this idea of like, like there was a pen, um, Pilot had a purple pen, like especially for women's hands or something, and people rejected it, right? So it was like two, it's because, because it's because it took this idea of like, knowing your customers, knowing what they care about, and it massively oversimplified it. And it made people feel like they were reduced to a single category of membership, right? And like so many research ideas, this came from my childhood where like I had an axe to grind.

• 28:11Speaker 02

  Research is therapy for me.

• 28:13Jen Cohen?

  Right, it's for everybody. If you can't do, you teach.

• 28:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, no, it's so true. Well, I had a, I had a babysitter when I was like, I don't know, seven or something. And she would always say, your favorite color is pink. You're a girl, your favorite color is pink. And I, no, it's not pink. And I actually really like pink, but I so stubbornly hated that, that I always, blue is my favorite color, right? And so this like idea, this reactance of like, when you feel reduced to a single category of membership, it's very off putting. And again, it speaks to this point about like how being known for who you really are is so calming and so trust building and so bonding. And in couples, you see this as well, where there have been studies of people who,

• 28:57Speaker 02

  so there's one scenario where suppose I have low self-esteem and my spouse, he says, oh, You're a goddess. You never have low self-esteem. Like, you're super confident all the time. So that's like an idealized version of me. So that's one version. Or in the other version, he says, oh, Les, I know you have low self-esteem. And it turns out that it's the people who feel like their partners know them, warts and all. I would rather my partner know my sucky qualities and admit to them than some fantasy. Like, it's being known for who you are that really, really is such a powerful basis for relationships and trust and influence and all good things.

• 29:34Jen Cohen?

  I think, well, I think that's 100% true. Like, you know, when you say to someone, like, oh, I'm like really down, or I'm like, I'm super, I'm down, or I'm like, not feeling great. And they're like, what do you mean? You're such a superstar. You can handle anything. It's like, I hate that. I hate that too. It's like, it's such a, like, it's like, you feel so, I hate this word, unseen, and like, such a brush-off.

• 29:54Speaker 02

  You don't know me.

• 29:54Jen Cohen?

  You don't know me at all. Like, what do you mean? What do you, like, you're so tough? You're so strong. Like, you can get through anything.

• 30:00Speaker 02

  Right.

• 30:01Jen Cohen?

  It's such, it's just like such a, I don't know what you call it. It just brushes over everything.

• 30:06Speaker 02

  It's like a dismissal and a denial. Yeah.

• 30:08Jen Cohen?

  God forbid you have real emotions or feelings.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  Right, right, right.

• 30:13Jen Cohen?

  So I know what you're saying. Like, I, that always, it's the worst. I'd rather the person say, yeah, I know that you struggle with this. It's okay, but you're gonna get through it.

• 30:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:21Jen Cohen?

  You are kind of a hot mess, but that's okay.

• 30:23Speaker 02

  I love you still, yeah.

• 30:25Jen Cohen?

  Or whatever it is.

• 30:25Speaker 02

  It's so much more meaningful when someone loves you then, right?

• 30:27Jen Cohen?

  Well, yeah, because you feel, like, like you said, like, you feel like someone actually, like, like, is getting under the hood and understands and knows you.

• 30:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:35Jen Cohen?

  Right?

• 30:42Jen Cohen?

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• 31:27Jen Cohen?

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• 32:18Jen Cohen?

  We talked a little bit about, obviously, why oversharing can be powerful and like where the lines are crossed. I still really, we actually haven't really kind of delved as deep as I'd like into this, where the lines cross.

• 32:30Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 32:30Jen Cohen?

  We know that when you compliment people in a genuine way, it's very, very, it brings people, it's disarming, it brings people into like a nicer space and all the other things. What about leaders?

• 32:42Speaker 02

  Ah, good. I'm glad you went there. Yes. So that is an area where this may, this may qualify. This may, but we'll see. So when leaders are vulnerable, I also don't like the word vulnerable because I'm like, what does that mean? My skin's vulnerable. When they share a work-related weakness that they are working on, or a difficult feeling related to work. So something that is Has it's vulnerable in the sense it has risk to it, sharing your feelings, sharing your weaknesses. We have found in study after study that when leaders, high status people, share some of their weaknesses.

• 33:24Speaker 02

  So for example, if they said to a group of new recruits, gave their introduction and they also added in their self description. You know, I'll admit that sometimes I get nervous public speaking. And so that's something that you would not expect a leader to share. And what we find is when leaders do this, it makes their employees trust them. It makes their employees more motivated to work for them relative to when they they don't. It's more of a facade, like a leader then is not relatable. And you can't trust someone who is never vulnerable or never has no flaws, no apparent flaws, right? And then we did more studies where we're like, well, how far, what, how much vulnerability, right? Like, what's the tipping point?

• 34:04Speaker 02

  Because surely, you know, if you say something extremely vulnerable, that can't be good. And so what we did, I love my job, is we we had different, we had employees watch different versions of a leader introducing himself. And we did it with a woman leader too. And we just varied how sense, how deep the disclosure was. So we would start with like, sometimes I get nervous public speaking. And then another would be, sometimes I get nervous public speaking, so much so that my mouth gets dry sometimes. There's the Canadian accent mouth. And then another one, all of that, I get nervous public speaking so much so that my mouth gets dry. And sometimes I have full blown panic attacks. And so we wondered like, at what point? And we asked people, we asked leaders, we're like, is any, are any of these safe?

• 34:49Speaker 02

  Or are they all undermining? And they're like, oh, my God, those are all undermining. I would never do that, like, no, sharing that you're nervous public speaking, it erodes. You're your company won't have faith in you. They'll think you're incompetent, right? And so then we actually got employees to tell us what they thought. And it actually, the first one, they it enhanced trust and it did not make you think the leader is incompetent. The second level, same thing. The one, so I'm nervous public speaking and sometimes my mouth gets dry. That was like not, that was not a career limiting disclosure. In fact, it built trust. The third one was like, okay, now I, now this person is like, I don't know if they can do their job. And so that's what the pattern we see again and again is that the line is often a little bit further than you think it is.

• 35:34Jen Cohen?

  Right. I, I, I believe that the line's further than you think. But again, I'm always going to go back to.

• 35:40Speaker 02

  There's still a line.

• 35:41Jen Cohen?

  There's still a line.

• 35:41Speaker 02

  A hundred percent.

• 35:42Jen Cohen?

  And so if we're not in like some kind of like Petri dish where you're doing an experiment, right?

• 35:47Speaker 02

  What do we do?

• 35:48Jen Cohen?

  What are we supposed to do? Because I think that there's also a piece of this where there are different degrees of people's self-awareness and emotional intelligence.

• 35:57Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 35:58Jen Cohen?

  You know, some people can kind of like feel innately like, oh yeah, there's a line here. Like I know exactly how to push it, how to come back at it.

• 36:05Speaker 02

  Right.

• 36:06Jen Cohen?

  There are other people have zero social like skills.

• 36:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 36:09Jen Cohen?

  And they'll have no idea and it will be TMI.

• 36:13Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 36:13Jen Cohen?

  So again, where is the middle ground between TLI, too little information, and TMI?

• 36:20Speaker 02

  That is the fundamental question. And I can't say it's here because it's, it's always shifting. But what I can say is one, knowing where the line is, is a skill. It's a learnable skill. So people with self-awareness, that gives you a huge advantage. And in fact, getting this right enhances your self-awareness too. So the, one of the best ways to learn the skill is to practice by being, so we have this general finding of like, it's often a little further than you think. Okay. Well, you can implement that in real life. Go a little bit further than you think. Observe what happens. See what happens. Experiment, test, learn. It's not something, if you never try it, you will never know. You'll never learn.

• 36:58Speaker 02

  The other thing is there's also some pretty tried and true like cues that you can use or like rules of thumb. And one of those rules of thumb is reciprocity. So if you are in, I don't know, we could talk about it in dating. We could talk about it in friendship. So suppose you're, you're looking for a new friend and you're in a social situation with new potential friends.

• 37:23Speaker 02

  Reciprocity is really your number one tool here. And what that means is that you want to share something. So the goal is find a point of commonality that you can both relate to. Because friendship is made on mutuality and finding things in common and liking. Well, how do you do that? You need to reveal and find these things. So start with something casual, like not a big reveal, a question even. And then they'll share something. And then the key thing is when you respond, you want to meet them and maybe raise them a bit. So you want to share something that's just as vulnerable or not vulnerable as them. And go a little bit further. And then what they'll do is that it's such a natural instinct to reciprocate. They'll do the same thing and then you're off to the races. So the sequencing really matters.

• 38:07Speaker 02

  So the way you can implement it, if you're saying like, I'm an alien from outer space. How do I do this?

• 38:12Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 38:12Speaker 02

  Is you look, are they reciprocating? Or am I talking the whole time? Am I not letting them reciprocate? Uh, maybe I should ask them a question to get them, right? To get that back and forth.

• 38:23Jen Cohen?

  So is authenticity a good thing or a bad thing?

• 38:27Speaker 02

  Oh, that's a good question. Hmm. Would you, I bet you have a view. I would love your view, but do you want me to go first?

• 38:34Jen Cohen?

  Sure, you go first and then I'll tell you my view.

• 38:36Speaker 02

  Is, the question is, is authenticity ever a bad thing?

• 38:39Jen Cohen?

  No, is authenticity a good thing or a bad thing in your opinion?

• 38:43Speaker 02

  I think it is generally a good thing. I think that to me, one of the core things is, not to be pedantic, but how you define authenticity. So to me, authenticity does not mean saying everything that is on my mind at all times. That is not authenticity. To me, authenticity means being genuine, saying the sincere things that I mean, that are appropriate for the context at hand. And there, I mean, what's not to like about that? I think that's, that's amazing. It's hard to do.

• 39:13Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, I would say in my opinion, what I think, I think authenticity is good eighty percent of the time. Because the other times, if I think when you are speaking, when you're speaking to someone and you're telling the truth, that can be sometimes not so great. If you feel like being authentic, like I don't feel like getting out of bed today, so I'm not going to do these things that I have to do. But I'm being authentic.

• 39:38Speaker 02

  Oh, that's not, yeah.

• 39:40Jen Cohen?

  Or like, you know, like I gotta like.

• 39:41Speaker 02

  You can't just not be a grown up.

• 39:42Jen Cohen?

  You can't be a grown up.

• 39:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:44Jen Cohen?

  But like, there's all this chitter chatter about being authentic and authenticity. And I'm one of those people who really believe in, you know, being authentic and genuine and real.

• 39:55Speaker 02

  Genuine and real.

• 39:56Jen Cohen?

  Genuine and real, which sometimes gets very crowded with the word authenticity. Because if authenticity is you just being an asshole, then maybe you shouldn't, maybe being authentic isn't so great.

• 40:07Speaker 02

  Completely, completely.

• 40:08Jen Cohen?

  So I think, again, I think everything comes down to emotional intelligence and having the self-awareness or the self-intelligence.

• 40:16Speaker 02

  Completely.

• 40:17Jen Cohen?

  And social intelligence.

• 40:18Speaker 02

  And situational awareness, completely.

• 40:19Jen Cohen?

  And situational awareness. But with why I say this is what I've learned is common sense isn't so common.

• 40:26Speaker 02

  I know.

• 40:27Jen Cohen?

  Right? Most people don't have it.

• 40:29Speaker 02

  It sucks.

• 40:30Jen Cohen?

  Right? And I sit here.

• 40:31Speaker 02

  Use your noodle, people. Use your noodle.

• 40:33Jen Cohen?

  But you know what? I sit here all day with some of the most smartest.

• 40:37Speaker 02

  I know. We academics are the worst for common sense, aren't we? We're like, we get it all contorted.

• 40:42Jen Cohen?

  Unbelievable. I've had these conversations and they're like.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  Use your noodle.

• 40:46Jen Cohen?

  But even, or just like not picking up on like basics.

• 40:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, completely.

• 40:50Jen Cohen?

  Right? Where like these people, like I said, who are like the smartest, most successful. And I'm like, you are a moron.

• 40:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:55Jen Cohen?

  Like, are you not picking up on like the social situation, the circumstance? Like, you can be very, very smart in one area.

• 41:03Speaker 02

  IQ.

• 41:04Jen Cohen?

  Or in one area of your life.

• 41:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:07Jen Cohen?

  But be a complete moron in everything else.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  Completely, I agree.

• 41:11Jen Cohen?

  And I believe, like, you know what? In my opinion, I think there's actually better to be smart in like, be street smart than being school smart.

• 41:17Speaker 02

  I totally agree. And I did not always think that, so.

• 41:20Jen Cohen?

  Well, you're an academic.

• 41:21Speaker 02

  I know. And it's like blasphemous for me to say that, but. You know, I, yeah, IQ is great and all, but I just, I take what you're calling realness, street smarts. I think of it as EQ, Rittler, you know, like being able to read the worm, self-awareness, emotional intelligence, all of those things, I think are way more important than IQ. Way more important, way more important for achievement in life. We often think it's IQ, but I don't think so. It's, these things are way more important for achievement, but also like for well-being and relationships and, and joy, you know?

• 41:55Jen Cohen?

  You said it there, joy. I think that's one thing, like, yeah, well, if you're trying to be a professor or a surgeon, yeah, you need to have really great grades. I mean, you know, have them off the charts, right? But like, how about for like being happy in life and being successful personally, or having like, deep relationships, or all these other things?

• 42:15Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 42:16Jen Cohen?

  Super important to be more emotionally aware and emotionally intelligent.

• 42:20Speaker 02

  It's interesting how times have changed because I'm thinking to my, my parents, and they both, especially my mom, like, super smart woman, skipped two or three grades. And nowadays, so we have a five-year-old and we just held him back, which to my mom, if you're listening, my mother's chagrin, she's like, not so subtle, so like, he's so smart, he's so smart. I'm like, I know he's smart, but EQ, like, his ability to under, deal with difficult emotions, understand himself, like, that's so much more important. And the data show unequivocally, boys are much less good at that. Why? Because of the way we socialize them and all these things. And so, like, I, like, he, I want him to, and so now we do the opposite, right? And I think about my mom

• 43:04Speaker 02

  and how, you know, she, in some ways, she really struggled in school, not academically, like, grades, but like, I think this old-school way of like, people would skip grades all the time, and now we do the opposite. I think it makes so much more sense that, like, I'm all on board for, if anything, I'm like, over-correcting. I'm like, how do you feel? Let's talk about that feeling, you know? And they're just like, I just want to play, Bob, so.

• 43:27Jen Cohen?

  Right. And there's too much of that, I think, too. But you said something earlier that I thought was, was really interesting, because you're a Harvard professor. And when I was asking you about like how you, you know, your evolution of how you got here, you kind of took it to a, the wrong direction that I was thinking.

• 43:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 43:43Jen Cohen?

  And but what you, but, but when you said that, you revealed something that I was super interested in. And that is, you said that it was like this and, and luck. So you mentioned that luck was a part of it.

• 43:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:53Jen Cohen?

  And I want to talk about that because someone who has the pedigree, I guess, that you have.

• 43:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:57Jen Cohen?

  And here we are talking about street smarts versus academic.

• 44:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:01Jen Cohen?

  And emotional intelligence versus IQ.

• 44:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:05Jen Cohen?

  Here you are, like, people listening, if they want to get into Harvard or teach at Harvard, you said it was luck. So why, what, what played, what played on your, on your team to decide you? Because you also said you had social equity over there too.

• 44:19Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. I mean, it's a combination of things, right? Like, I do think for sure luck, like, there are so many people that could be in my job that there is a certain point where luck, and I see it now being on, on this side of it where we interview people. And, you know, someone's having a, one really influential prof is having a really grouchy day and is like, asking grouchy questions that are making the person stumble. And then all the junior people, nobody wants to hire them because of this, right? Because, because someone had a bad, like, right? So fluky things like that. So that's a real thing. But now, now that I'm a senior person, I'm like, how, how do I assert myself and stop that from happening, right? But that's a whole other topic. But I think, so, so that's what I mean.

• 45:02Speaker 02

  There, there is a certain element of luck, but I also think, when I think more deeply about what you're pointing out, I think that you can create your own luck too. And I've been lucky, like the gene luck, right? Like, I'm lucky, my parents are healthy, my parents, right? That's lucky. I don't, I don't know, I couldn't control my genes. So that's luck for sure. Um, I don't take for granted. But then there's also the, reading the room, the street smarts of. How you, how you get people to do things, how you get people to help you. That sounds Machiavellian. I don't mean it that way, but like,

• 45:30Jen Cohen?

  No, but it's actually, but, but can be honest, it's the truth.

• 45:33Speaker 02

  How do you, how do you, yeah, how do you get people to do stuff?

• 45:36Jen Cohen?

  So how did you do it? So I want to know, and be honest.

• 45:38Speaker 02

  Right, so there's lots of,

• 45:40Jen Cohen?

  Overshare.

• 45:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 45:41Jen Cohen?

  Here we are, I'm asking you to overshare.

• 45:43Speaker 02

  For sure. Um, so I, my, if we go to, back to grad school, my PhD advisor was like just a fat, he's alive, so was, I guess he was in the past.

• 45:52Jen Cohen?

  He's fat, you said?

• 45:53Speaker 02

  No, no, he was, as if, as if he's dead. He's not dead. Hi, George. But he, um, he is a brilliant and super creative person. He is extreme, I would say this to his face, he's extremely difficult to work with. Like, so many students have, that are epically genius, like way higher IQ than me, have failed with him. And so I knew this and I, what I, I did, like, small things can make a big difference. For example, I stuck my neck out or insisted or assertively asked to have the office that was right beside his office. Like, there was two possible offices I could have been in. And, and so when I needed to take on him, I'm not going to like, email him, I go into, hey, George, I have a question for you, like, quick question, right?

• 46:37Speaker 02

  And so you kind of learn how this person works and, and it's reading the room. It's like, okay, he doesn't like being interrupted at this time, but this time is a great time. Like, he hated being interrupted if he was walking on the way to something, but like if he was settling in the morning after he biked. Like, now I just sound creepy that I know all this about him, but,

• 46:52Jen Cohen?

  No, but you're like, learning these things.

• 46:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, learning, being observant and, and, and helping people to help you in a way at the right times. And, and understanding that you're not, you're not their, like, he has a family, he's got much more important research, you know? And it's not about you, but if you want something to happen, you kind of have to make it happen.

• 47:10Jen Cohen?

  I love that. So then what happened? So then you got to know George because you were at your desk beside you.

• 47:15Speaker 02

  Right, right, got to know him, yeah.

• 47:17Jen Cohen?

  And you kind of learned his quirks and personality.

• 47:20Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 47:20Jen Cohen?

  Love it. Okay, then what?

• 47:22Speaker 02

  Right. And then, I mean, I worked super hard. I worked my heiny off.

• 47:26Jen Cohen?

  I'm taking that, like, that's obvious, okay? That, that kind of goes, that's a given.

• 47:30Speaker 02

  But what are the, like, what is the, like, the, the cheat sheet, the Kohl's notes?

• 47:33Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, like, what makes you, who works super? Hard, different than the other person who works super hard.

• 47:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:37Jen Cohen?

  Right?

• 47:38Speaker 02

  Savviness, I think, is really, you know, and I never thought of myself as savvy, but some of my, I have these very dear girlfriends, Pittsburgh sisters, grad school friends, we live all over the place now, and they said, Les, you're, you're the savvy one, you're the And I'm like, I'm not strategic, so negative and schemey. And they're like, no, you're not schemey. You're just like, you have street smarts. I don't know where I got it from, but now I'm trying to now like digest some like other, other, other ways of.

• 48:04Jen Cohen?

  You know, it's interesting.

• 48:05Speaker 02

  Oh, like another one would be, which is not a comfortable, it's not comfortable at all. You have to do really uncomfortable things and force yourself to do them. So one of the things was when I was practicing basically my pitch on the job market, my pitch of what my research is about. I went to the meanest, grumpiest, most skeptical faculty members that I was most intimidated by. And I was like, please grill me on this. And, and I probably even cried during a couple of them, but it was like, that's what you need. You need like someone to like, you, you need the inter, you need the practice to be harder than the performance, right?

• 48:42Jen Cohen?

  But you also trained yourself for this with ballet.

• 48:45Speaker 02

  Right.

• 48:45Jen Cohen?

  That's why I find it very interesting. Like, I believe that how you do one thing is how you do everything.

• 48:50Speaker 02

  A hundred percent.

• 48:51Jen Cohen?

  And you are ready, you are primed in a different way.

• 48:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:56Jen Cohen?

  To do this. So like,

• 48:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:57Jen Cohen?

  You know, I did this, I did this talk that is not out yet.

• 49:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:01Jen Cohen?

  Maybe by the time this podcast is out, it will be out. And it was about like how when you have some type of physical activity that you take seriously, fitness of some form, a sport, it like propels you in success in every other way of your life. Because it teaches you these fundamental life skills that you can't get anywhere else.

• 49:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:19Jen Cohen?

  And so it teaches you this like enormous amount of confidence.

• 49:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:23Jen Cohen?

  So like discipline.

• 49:24Speaker 02

  Self-efficacy.

• 49:25Jen Cohen?

  Self-efficacy is like in the top two.

• 49:27Speaker 02

  Completely, yeah.

• 49:28Jen Cohen?

  Right?

• 49:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 49:29Jen Cohen?

  The, that to kind of like, I can do hard things and I'm going to work, I'm going to work my ass off and I don't care about, like, I, I know I can do it.

• 49:37Speaker 02

  Oh, that gave me goosebumps.

• 49:38Jen Cohen?

  Right? Like the belief in yourself.

• 49:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:41Jen Cohen?

  And so right away, when I saw your bio. I knew when I saw more like trained ballet, you know, ballerina, I'm like, okay, no wonder she's going to be a Harvard professor. Was it because of your, not because like of your pedigree in school, I didn't even know where you went to school.

• 49:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:57Jen Cohen?

  But I knew right off the bat that that would, what you learned in that foundation was going to be propelling you in everything else.

• 50:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:04Jen Cohen?

  And like you said, it like you were, you knew that you had it, like you were going to like figure it out and like make it happen for yourself.

• 50:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:11Jen Cohen?

  By doing whatever needed to be done.

• 50:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's interesting. And I guess now reflecting on it, like, failure wasn't an option. Like, I wasn't like, it wasn't like, some people drop out, like, it wasn't on top of my, I'm like, this is, I'm just, I'm gonna do it.

• 50:24Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 50:24Speaker 02

  Like, it's gonna happen.

• 50:25Jen Cohen?

  And be, and also, if you failed, you had enough self-efficacy and confidence that you would pick yourself up again.

• 50:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, there was a million failures along the way, like, failure fest, for sure.

• 50:35Jen Cohen?

  I'm sure. But where else did you apply, besides Harvard?

• 50:38Speaker 02

  I, oh, yeah. So I applied super broadly. I applied to 80 schools.

• 50:41Jen Cohen?

  And you got it, but why?

• 50:43Speaker 02

  I know, randomness, like, it's, academia is so weird on how people make decisions, but...

• 50:50Jen Cohen?

  It's like the Wizard of Oz, though, right?

• 50:52Speaker 02

  I know, it's like, nobody sees the wizard.

• 50:54Jen Cohen?

  No, because nobody, people think, oh, it's gonna be the hardest thing in the world to do. And probably whatever happened in your path.

• 51:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:00Jen Cohen?

  You're probably like, actually, like, this Joe Blow, or like, the guy who made the decision, wasn't that, you know what I mean, wasn't what people expect.

• 51:07Speaker 02

  Right, right, right, right.

• 51:09Jen Cohen?

  I just find this very interesting.

• 51:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:11Jen Cohen?

  Because you're also a Canadian girl, went to Waterloo, like, it's very, there's a lot of like, things that you're saying, that I, I can like resonate with.

• 51:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, yeah, yeah, for sure. Do you find, so for you, what's it like, I mean, Canadian girl in LA, and, because you are super nice, agreeable, like, full-fledged Canadian, do you find it makes you vulnerable to being like, taken advantage of?

• 51:34Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, I'm partly agreeable, though.

• 51:36Speaker 02

  But you're not agreeable.

• 51:37Jen Cohen?

  Well, I mean, I would say...

• 51:38Speaker 02

  You're, you're comfortable with being contrarian, which is great.

• 51:41Jen Cohen?

  I'm comfortable about being contrarian, but it's because I have a lot, I, I, it's a self-efficacy.

• 51:46Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:47Jen Cohen?

  And I, I have a lot of confidence in like, who I am and what I'm saying.

• 51:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:51Jen Cohen?

  Because of experience, not because I'm being pompous or arrogant in any way, but it's like, experience and like, like repetition has given me the confidence.

• 52:01Speaker 02

  You also have a way of saying straight shooting, it's, it's actually... You respect, you, you show that you respect the person by straight shooting, right?

• 52:10Jen Cohen?

  And being honest.

• 52:10Speaker 02

  Cause you're like, I know you can take it that I don't buy this or whatever, right?

• 52:13Jen Cohen?

  Right. Like, I, I also think, like, kind of with your oversharing message, you know, I think it's really important if you really want to like connect with somebody again, to like, that's where I think authenticity is really important. When you're having a conversation and you're trying to connect to somebody in a real way, you've got to be honest with like,

• 52:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:33Jen Cohen?

  with where, where, where you stand.

• 52:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:35Jen Cohen?

  And you can do it in a, in a kinder and more polite way.

• 52:37Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 52:38Jen Cohen?

  You don't have to be an asshole.

• 52:39Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 52:40Jen Cohen?

  About doing it.

• 52:40Speaker 02

  Being authentic is not, I have such a, I have zero tolerance for jerks. Like, zero tolerance.

• 52:46Jen Cohen?

  Like, if I was being an, like, I, and I mean, and if I was being an asshole, maybe you would tell me I was. But like, I don't think just because I disagree with somebody that that makes me

• 52:55Speaker 02

  Not at all.

• 52:55Jen Cohen?

  a bad person.

• 52:56Speaker 02

  Not at all.

• 52:56Jen Cohen?

  Or rude.

• 52:57Speaker 02

  No.

• 52:57Jen Cohen?

  I think it's rude if I just sit here and, and nod, yes, yes, yes. And then this whole experience would be fake and phony.

• 53:05Speaker 02

  Right, totally. I don't want that.

• 53:07Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 53:07Speaker 02

  Nobody wants that.

• 53:08Jen Cohen?

  But there are people who do want it.

• 53:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 53:10Jen Cohen?

  And they're not, but then, But then, you know what? Then they're not my people and I'm okay with that.

• 53:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 53:15Jen Cohen?

  So I'm sure, I think the thing is I've, I'm okay with not being liked by everybody.

• 53:21Speaker 02

  That is like, I think a key life hack is be, once you're comfortable that realizing, I mean, I only realized that probably like three years ago that like, not everyone's gonna like me and I don't care, and that's fine, right? It's a problem if everyone likes me.

• 53:35Jen Cohen?

  I think, exactly. I was gonna say, if everyone likes me, I'm doing something wrong.

• 53:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's just like in a negotiation where if you always get what you want, then you're not asking for enough. You gotta, you gotta fail sometime. It's like if you're doing pushups and you never fail, like, you're not gonna get stronger.

• 53:48Jen Cohen?

  Well, right, if you always do the same 20 pushups, day in, day out, guess what happens? You're not getting any stronger. You're not really like changing it. You're not growing, you're just doing the same thing cause it's the, what you're comfortable doing. But there are a lot of people who like are really afraid of conflict and, um, but that's not being, like, that's not even conflict. It's just like having a,

• 54:09Speaker 02

  It's being a grown up.

• 54:09Jen Cohen?

  It's being a grown up. But I feel like we're in a, in a place in society where any type of Like dynamic where there's disagreement. It ends up being extremely polarizing and I then automatically I hate you. Why? Just because I disagree with you?

• 54:26Speaker 02

  I know. It's it's so it's so so many things maddening, saddening, excruciating, frustrating like it's it impedes growth. It's and it makes life uninteresting.

• 54:37Jen Cohen?

  I I totally agree. But being Canadian, like you were asking.

• 54:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what I want to know.

• 54:41Jen Cohen?

  Taken advantage of.

• 54:42Speaker 02

  Asking for a friend.

• 54:43Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, asking for a friend. I think that over my, I think that, yeah, to be honest with you, I think that I lead with how I can like help someone and give and I give a lot of things. Like I give a lot of things for free, or I give people this, or I give them contacts, or I give them help. And is it, it's probably not reciprocate, like I would say it gets reciprocated maybe 10% of the time. But like, I'm not going to change my core value system and who I am because of other people.

• 55:14Speaker 02

  To reciprocate.

• 55:14Jen Cohen?

  I'm not even doing, I'm just doing because that's who I am.

• 55:17Speaker 02

  But what if, so how do you then manage, I don't love the word boundary, but like, how do you manage like, you know, you have to, you also have to protect your nest and your family and your life and you're like, you can't just give everything.

• 55:28Jen Cohen?

  A hundred percent. But I am, I have problems with boundaries. In the sense that if I like you, I'll like, and like, I I do take people too often. I'm, I guess I could be slightly naive at the beginning if I like somebody. And then be disappointed. But I've learned that just to be like, kind of like the price of admission. Because that way, I I still am open to when I meet someone who's extraordinary and like, I have a great relationship with them. Like, I've met some extraordinary people and I've had extraordinary opportunities because I didn't change the core essence of who I am. By leading with how I put, even though I got, and I do get disappointed very, very often.

• 56:11Jen Cohen?

  I also try to keep things in perspective. Like, I don't really care. As long as my kids are healthy.

• 56:15Speaker 02

  I know, they are, this is not so grounding.

• 56:17Jen Cohen?

  Right, like, as long as they're fine, like, some idiot who's like, who's like dissing me or like talks shit about me or like, doesn't help me or doesn't respond back to like whatever it is, or someone makes me an empty promise. All right, like, I'm kind of used to that. I also live in LA. And I'm playing in a, in a world that's a lot of bullshit and nonsense and poppin' circumstance. So I'm used to a lot of this nonsense. And I've been doing it for so long and different iterations. Now it's a podcast. Before it was, you know, a lot of different things and like, it, I still as an entrepreneurship, I work a lot with like founders and I work, work a lot with brands and I work a lot with like entertainment things and books.

• 56:54Speaker 02

  Very cool.

• 56:55Jen Cohen?

  But like, at the same time, it's like, people are people and you're gonna like, find all sorts. LA or this, at this level, you're gonna find all sorts.

• 57:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:05Jen Cohen?

  But I will say this, I think that water does find its level and you do eventually gravitate to people that you're similar to.

• 57:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm with you.

• 57:13Jen Cohen?

  And so I do have with amongst all that stuff, I have, like I said, I have a lot of great people around me who are really good and quality. And I tend to forget about all the shitty people I've met along the way, right? Cause it just like, doesn't matter at the end of the day.

• 57:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally.

• 57:28Jen Cohen?

  You're asking because, for a friend, of course, is your friend having a problem with like navigating a lot of this?

• 57:34Speaker 02

  Um, so she is, yeah, like I think it's, it's hard because the, the boundary of like wanting to give, now it just sounds like an extended humble brag, which is not my intention, but like.

• 57:46Jen Cohen?

  No, no, I understand.

• 57:46Speaker 02

  But you know, and like the, when I connect with someone, I'm like, yay, like it just feels so good. And, and you just, like, you wanna be besties and.

• 57:55Jen Cohen?

  Right, right, right.

• 57:56Speaker 02

  Um, and so, but I love, I have learned though, to, this is gonna sound weird, but like massively lower my expectations. I think the key to happiness is just having extremely low expectations. And then you're, oh, I know, it sounds like defeatist, but it's like, it's so helpful. Cause it's like, and, and doing things also not to please people. Cause if you're doing something to please someone, then you're so vulnerable. Cause then if the person like doesn't react, then you're, you're, you're crushed. But like, no, I'm, I'm helping you write this article. I'm mentoring you doctoral student, like my version of how I help.

• 58:31Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 58:32Speaker 02

  Because I like you and I want to nurture you and I enjoy this, right? And so, and I do agree with you that the nicies find the nicies in the end.

• 58:42Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, you do. Like, I find like, I had, I think there's a couple of things that you said that are really interesting. The first thing is the nicies find the nicies, because that's a nice way of putting it. But I also think the low expectation is a massive one.

• 58:56Speaker 02

  A hundred percent.

• 58:57Jen Cohen?

  Because I think that's where we get ourselves into trouble.

• 58:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:00Jen Cohen?

  When we expect others to be like you, like,

• 59:02Speaker 02

  Right.

• 59:02Jen Cohen?

  to act like how I would.

• 59:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 59:04Jen Cohen?

  There's been a lot of scenarios, one very recent one that's like gutturally killed me because I expected someone to act in the same way I would have acted.

• 59:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:13Jen Cohen?

  And they didn't.

• 59:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:15Jen Cohen?

  Crushed me.

• 59:15Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 59:16Jen Cohen?

  And, because I was not expecting

• 59:18Speaker 02

  Yep, I hate that.

• 59:19Jen Cohen?

  that behavior.

• 59:19Speaker 02

  It's so upsetting.

• 59:20Jen Cohen?

  It's really, it like, it like hit me in my gut.

• 59:24Speaker 02

  Were they close to you?

• 59:24Jen Cohen?

  Very.

• 59:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:25Jen Cohen?

  And that was a surprise to me.

• 59:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:28Jen Cohen?

  And so, you know, I think that having unrealistic expectations, not knowing someone as, someone as well as you think you know them. Or being, like, you've got to keep your eyes open and never, never just expect people to do what you would do.

• 59:43Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 59:43Jen Cohen?

  Because that's when you become so disappointed.

• 59:45Speaker 02

  Right, right. And that's where like, revealing, asking questions, learning about others, it's really made me appreciate that more, that like, we walk around the world thinking implicitly that everybody is like us. And, and then when you ask people and learn more, you're like, oh, no, they're not. And that's okay. They have a different set of goals and motives. And it's interesting. I had two salient experiences have come to mind of what you were saying, where one of them is this idea of how, this is a motto, my family motto. It's nice to be nice. Which my husband makes fun of me for, because he's, he's nice, but he's like, um, he's got an edge to him. And so I'm, I'm often having to, it's nice to be nice, like,

• 1:00:24Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:25Speaker 02

  tip the Uber driver.

• 1:00:28Jen Cohen?

  What does he do, your husband?

• 1:00:29Speaker 02

  He's a consultant.

• 1:00:30Jen Cohen?

  Okay, for who, like McKinsey?

• 1:00:31Speaker 02

  PWC, but

• 1:00:32Jen Cohen?

  Okay, close enough.

• 1:00:33Speaker 02

  But he was, was a professional athlete, which, soccer player, which is like, so that, we're like, very like simpatico. But he, I don't know, but I also, he's like, super reserved. And the thing, like, after he read this, I was so nervous for him to read the book because You know, the stuff about us and he's like, when we're at dinner, we'll be talking about something banal. And he's like in hushed voices, like he's like, super. And, and he said, I love this book so much. Don't change anything about it. I need to, I need to open up more. And, and he's been like experimenting more. But yeah, so he's, and also being a little warmer. Um, I know now that I've painted him as a total jerk, but he's not, he's, he's amazing. I do, sometimes I wonder if he, I know this is, I have asked him if he's a

• 1:01:17Speaker 02

  spy, because, and he did not, he dodged it. He's so observant. He's, he always knows where everyone is, where everyone, like, he's like, super city. It's like, hyper vigilance. But anyways, wow, that's a weird tangent. But, um, the thing I was gonna, um, and now, now that I said it, he's, I'm gonna get home soon and protect him. He's out, cover's blown. Um, sorry, Colleen. Um, but, yeah, yeah. So this idea about like, it's nice to be nice. And like, you do nice things because you genuinely want to. And so I think something that really gets in the way that people think is competing, like achievement and being nice, like the idea of like, I think people walk around implicitly often thinking like

• 1:02:00Speaker 02

  it's a zero sum world, and like, my, my achievement is at your expense. Especially like at Harvard, when I was starting, um, and teaching is really grueling teaching there. And I didn't know what I was doing, but I did not reveal that to my students. Um, and we'd have these meetings, these teaching group meetings, we were all teaching more or less the same thing to different students. And there was another professor there who, and the idea behind these meetings is to share ideas on how to do this, because we all can get high teaching evaluations, right? Like, if I get a high one, it doesn't mean you get a low one. It's not zero sum. Yeah. But yet, there was this one. Colleague who more frequently than chance, he'd be like, he would be tight lipped during

• 1:02:43Speaker 02

  these meetings. And then the net, beginning of the next meeting, when we'd review last week, he'd be like, oh, my God, I came up with this amazing framework of how to make sense of this and how to teach this thing. But I literally came up with it on the way to class. So like, that's why I didn't share it. And it just is like, and I think that's, that is actually, that is, even if he was purely interested in his own payout, which some people are, I think it's still misguided because when you share your ideas with five other smart people, you get even better, right? And you've had a rep of explaining it, which makes you a better teacher. And so it was like, the completely wrong mental model of like, I need to hoard my ideas. It's a zero sum world. You know, I don't know for sure, but it was like, very suspicious, right? And so it's like, the wrong mental

• 1:03:27Speaker 02

  model. So for sure, we get burned sometimes, for sure.

• 1:03:30Jen Cohen?

  Right. So like, this whole, I

• 1:03:31Speaker 02

  I love that the cost of entry, though, like, it's worth it.

• 1:03:34Jen Cohen?

  It is a cost of entry. But I was gonna say, competition is a whole other thing, right?

• 1:03:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:38Jen Cohen?

  Because people

• 1:03:39Speaker 02

  I'm super competitive.

• 1:03:40Jen Cohen?

  So I'm super competitive too. But, or and, as they like to say, God.

• 1:03:45Speaker 02

  Yes, and.

• 1:03:45Jen Cohen?

  And, yes, and, I'm not competitive with women because they're women. I'm competitive against myself.

• 1:03:51Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:03:52Jen Cohen?

  I don't, I don't

• 1:03:53Speaker 02

  Right. Oh, for sure. Oh, my gosh, that put a light on. Like, when I'm at the gym, I'm like, I'm doing burpees, like, not because I want to do more than you, because I want to get the F of burpees. Like, I want to do a minute of burpees.

• 1:04:03Jen Cohen?

  I don't care what you're doing. Wait, wait, how successful you are, or how much of a failure you are, doesn't, doesn't like, doesn't change my life, whatsoever.

• 1:04:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:13Jen Cohen?

  I've always felt that way. So like, if I'm with, you know, like, if I'm sitting with the most, the most beautiful girl in the world, I'm not like, oh, my God, I'm so this, and I feel this way. Like, I don't, I'm like, great. I'm like, I'm like, wow, look how beautiful you are. Look how great you, like, your body's amazing. Like, it's more of a, I, I think it's much more of an, like, aspiring, or inspiring, or, I don't care. Look how smart you are. Like, I, I'm not that way.

• 1:04:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:37Jen Cohen?

  Why I'm bringing this up?

• 1:04:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:39Jen Cohen?

  And the competitive

• 1:04:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:40Jen Cohen?

  State is Unfortunately, a lot of women are very competitive with other women, with women. And I think there's this whole, this whole lie about like women empowerment, like women helping women and all these things. Yeah, women help women when they are basically hmm, not as great as them, or not as smart as them, or not as successful as them. Not as threatening to them.

• 1:05:04Speaker 02

  So that's, my theory on this is under fundamental insecurity of like, if you are, are not fully comfortable in your shoes, in your skin, then you will be threatened by someone. There's always someone who is more beautiful, more smart, more, there's always.

• 1:05:20Jen Cohen?

  More successful, more everything. Like, there's, there's enough to go, I think the mentality is like, you know, there's enough, there's enough success or that there's enough whatever to go around.

• 1:05:28Speaker 02

  For everyone.

• 1:05:28Jen Cohen?

  You don't have to hoard it by just like thinking that like, like that to me is a very, very myopic, terrible way to lose. Actually, you lose that way.

• 1:05:38Speaker 02

  I agree, I agree.

• 1:05:39Jen Cohen?

  But you can't change human nature.

• 1:05:40Speaker 02

  Right. So I was curious, as you were talking, how, because I think a lot of people are not like that, that your idea of like, it's competitive about yourself and not again, like, and you've always been that, like, I'm curious why, how you developed in that way, or if you have a theory on that. It's interesting.

• 1:05:56Jen Cohen?

  I feel, whose podcast is this?

• 1:06:00Jen Cohen?

  I think it's like a, I, I think that like, I never, I never really thought of myself as anything more than average, right? And so everything that I've achieved or God or became is because I feel like I worked really hard at it, right? Like, I didn't think of myself as being especially, you know, exceptionally smart, exceptionally beautiful, whatever, whatever it is. So like, what I did was I took what I had and optimized it the best I knew how, by working really freaking hard.

• 1:06:32Speaker 02

  Executing.

• 1:06:33Jen Cohen?

  And executing and learning all these different strategies and habits and. Routines and whatever it is, just to kind of enhance whatever I have. And so it's it came from the same thing I said earlier, which was self efficacy. Like seeing myself transform myself, not because, you know, someone else did it for me. It's because I did it for myself and I didn't do any crazy thing. It wasn't like I went and got plastic surgery. It wasn't like so anything I have is because I it's like hard work, you know, like I'm fit because I actually work out like a fiend, right? Not because I'm taking something and I'm doing this or I'm doing that, right? Like whatever my face is, it's it's going to be what my face is.

• 1:07:15Jen Cohen?

  I'm not getting any crazy surgeries because I don't like like I've learned to like really love who I am and be happy with what it is, whatever, good and bad. And all I I've kind of made a decision much very early on that like I'm going to do the best I can with what I have, but I'm not going to like, I'm not going to force or fake or be something that I'm not.

• 1:07:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:35Jen Cohen?

  And so when you have a really strong sense of self.

• 1:07:38Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:07:38Jen Cohen?

  Everything else coming into your life, like I'm I'm OK with it.

• 1:07:41Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:07:41Jen Cohen?

  And I want everyone else to be the best version of themselves without feeling that they have to like alter something in them.

• 1:07:47Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:07:47Jen Cohen?

  Like, so I I'm a big champion for guys and or girls, whoever I think like are good humans, you know? But a lot of women just don't think that way, right? And they see everybody as like a threat or a competition or and so like I've and I've seen it all the time, like women always, like I said, say, oh, I want a women champion. And then like, yeah, they're not helping. They help you until you until you kind of surpass them, right? Until you become more successful or more fit or more this or more that. I see this daily, young people and old people. People are people, it doesn't change. Like you think because you mature, you change, people change, they don't change. In fact, actually, it gets worse. They just maybe hide it a little bit better.

• 1:08:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, you got to work with what you have for sure.

• 1:08:33Jen Cohen?

  That's what I that's just the way it is.

• 1:08:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:34Jen Cohen?

  Does that make sense?

• 1:08:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, no, it totally makes sense. Totally makes sense. I am one of my best friends is an identical twin and she she's a colleague at Harvard. And so like, we have all the ingredients of rivalry, like we're a similar age. We are both competitive. We're both like have these this amazing job, like all these things and. And she said to me once, and then we had this professor who was talking about rivalry, giving a talk, and we were just like making eyes the whole time. We're like, is this us? Is this us? Are we rivals? Are we rivals?

• 1:09:07Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:07Speaker 02

  And then she said, we talked about it afterwards and she said, she said, so good. She studies conversation. She said, why aren't we rivals? Isn't that such a great way in, right? It's like presuming the good thing, right?

• 1:09:21Jen Cohen?

  Right, right. And, and, yes.

• 1:09:22Speaker 02

  And, and then we started talking about it. And because we have all the elements of it, and I said to her, I think you led this because you, you have this experience of, she, it's so interesting talking about the experience of being an identical twin. She's like, I am a communal, like, I was born as a communal person caring about this other human. And so she just doesn't see things, like she views giving as like its core to wanting to help. And she's also extremely confident, extremely self-assured, right? Her mother is amazing. Her mother was a, um, a school, uh, like a guidance counselor back in the day, like, yeah, not, but back in the day, you know, women, they didn't get amazing PhDs in psychology, right?

• 1:10:05Speaker 02

  So she had the like most EQ thing. Um, and you talked to her mom, she's amazing. So she had like, she, she had like great upbringing and stuff and she's super, super confident. She's so confident in her skin and she's, she's happy. She realizes that often success begets success. Like helping someone feels good. Now I just sound cheesy, but it's true. Like, and you gotta live it to.

• 1:10:22Jen Cohen?

  No, no, no. Success begets success. I, I totally understand what you're saying. And I agree with everything about that stuff. And like, I think that being, I, I think wanting other people to win helps you win.

• 1:10:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:34Jen Cohen?

  I really do believe that.

• 1:10:35Speaker 02

  I believe it too.

• 1:10:36Jen Cohen?

  Cause I, I, I, I just don't like, even if it doesn't happen, like, I think that like life is long. It may not happen just right off the bat with that one person. But like, everything is a ripple. It's a, it's a long game and there's a ripple effect, right? So maybe not, it won't happen with this one. But like, you know, I know you don't really probably know me very well, but I did a whole thing. I did my first TED talk. I've done three, but my first one was on being bold and asking for what you want in life.

• 1:11:02Speaker 02

  I watched that.

• 1:11:02Jen Cohen?

  Oh, you have?

• 1:11:03Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:11:03Jen Cohen?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:11:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:05Jen Cohen?

  And this, well, this whole thing is like this whole, like make 10 attempts or whatever you want most in life. And the thing is, what it teaches you is not just to, you know, to get comfortable with failing, but. You making those attempts, either you're gonna get that thing you want, or another opportunity will present itself.

• 1:11:20Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 1:11:21Jen Cohen?

  So like.

• 1:11:21Speaker 02

  Stuff leads to stuff.

• 1:11:22Jen Cohen?

  Stuff leads to stuff, right? But you're just like, kind of like, kind of doing it.

• 1:11:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:27Jen Cohen?

  Right?

• 1:11:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:27Jen Cohen?

  Kind of like throwing a lot of shit at the wall. Eventually, something is gonna stick. And there's nothing wrong with thinking that way. Right?

• 1:11:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:33Jen Cohen?

  Like, no opportunity is gonna happen with you sitting on your couch, watching Netflix.

• 1:11:36Speaker 02

  Right? Do it.

• 1:11:37Jen Cohen?

  It's like making a shot, making a shot, making a shot.

• 1:11:40Speaker 02

  Do it. And I, I get, uh, so the, the Harvard version of this is, is I get students who come in, um, you know, needing to do research, uh, wanting to do research. That's like how we succeed. And they're just perseverating. They're like, I don't know what, what, like, I'll, I'll start saying crazy ideas. Why don't you study this, this, to try to get them to be comfortable brainstorming? And they're like, but that's not in my wheelhouse. That's not like my core. And I'm like.

• 1:12:04Jen Cohen?

  Who cares?

• 1:12:05Speaker 02

  What? Well, like, yeah, who cares? Like, you don't even have, like, I don't even have a core. Like, what are you interested in? Just do it. Let's get some data. Let's get the survey up right now.

• 1:12:14Jen Cohen?

  Right, not doing. Not perfect progress.

• 1:12:16Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:12:16Jen Cohen?

  Make progress.

• 1:12:17Speaker 02

  Stop perseverating and do something.

• 1:12:19Jen Cohen?

  See, but that's where people, so this is what my whole talk is about, is the fact that we are our own worst enemies. And overthinking.

• 1:12:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:26Jen Cohen?

  Is analysis paralysis.

• 1:12:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:28Jen Cohen?

  And I use.

• 1:12:29Speaker 02

  Welcome to academia.

• 1:12:30Jen Cohen?

  Well, I use you, I use you in my whole talk, because I say this, people who are the smartest.

• 1:12:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:35Jen Cohen?

  Right?

• 1:12:36Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:12:36Jen Cohen?

  Are not the ones who win. The people who win are the boldest.

• 1:12:39Speaker 02

  Cause they, they can't, they're like, but this is.

• 1:12:41Jen Cohen?

  They'll think of every outcome, that thing go wrong, the negativity. What happens at this? What happened to that?

• 1:12:46Speaker 02

  It's paralyzing.

• 1:12:47Jen Cohen?

  It's paralyzing. But if you're just bold.

• 1:12:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:49Jen Cohen?

  Which is what my whole thing is.

• 1:12:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:51Jen Cohen?

  Is that like, you're just gonna do it. And if you fail, alright, if it doesn't work, okay.

• 1:12:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:54Jen Cohen?

  Like, that's why I was saying earlier, like, me being average, growing up, worked to my advantage. Because the more average I was, the more like, if I failed, no one cared.

• 1:13:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're not threatening.

• 1:13:05Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, I could keep on trying. And as I kept on trying, I was, I was sharpening my tool. And I was getting better and faster and stronger and smarter than all these people who were like, were at the time, so much more like smarter, prettier, faster, whatever it was, right?

• 1:13:21Speaker 02

  Right, right, right.

• 1:13:22Jen Cohen?

  So that's my point. It's like, you can't count yourself up. Without even like making the attempts.

• 1:13:27Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:13:27Jen Cohen?

  And you're gonna, like, don't you, did you, have you heard that thing like it's the C students or the A plus students working for the C students?

• 1:13:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, that that makes that because they're they don't have the grit, the the like.

• 1:13:39Jen Cohen?

  They had to like learn the resourcefulness and the grit to get through.

• 1:13:42Speaker 02

  The wily resourcefulness, yeah, totally. Another thing came to mind as it came to mind now and earlier about like being average and um and and when you're like, what are the, how did you get to where you are? I, on the first day of grad school, we did this exercise and and and my naivete too of like, we're all gonna be friends and happy. It's a cohort, like, let's let's cuddle. And so he, the the professor, he's, we are this cohort of like six new students and small and he slaps a twenty dollar bill in front of each of us and he has us all do, puts us in a prisoner's dilemma, which essentially, basically you've got, you're with someone else. I'm with, I'm paired up with this person. We've just started, we've just met each other.

• 1:14:27Speaker 02

  And there's twenty dollars in between us and we each have to make a decision, split or steal. If we both say, and it's simultaneous reveal, it's one, two, three, what are you gonna say?

• 1:14:38Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that.

• 1:14:39Speaker 02

  And so if we both play split, then we split it down, even Steven, ten bucks each, okay? So if we both cooperate, but the problem is there's a temptation to be selfish and defect. Where, by that I mean, if you play steal and the other person, you somehow manage to convince them to play spit, split. So if I play steal and you play split, you're generous, trusting, and I'm not, I play steal, I get all twenty bucks. And then if both of us play steal, none of us get anything, okay? So the the the thing that's tricky is you wanna each get ten dollars, that's like a really nice outcome, but you've always got the, if you, if I know that you're gonna play split, then I'll be tempted to be like backstab and play steal so that I can get more money, right?

• 1:15:21Speaker 02

  And so this is like a very, it's been studied ad nauseam in economics and beyond. There's like a a correct answer to this. The correct rational and rational in quotes. The correct answer is to, in this situation. To play steel, which nobody gets anything. That's like the correct answer. And I knew that I did know this coming in, like that that is the correct answer. But in my mind, I'm like, but this is a bonding exercise.

• 1:15:47Jen Cohen?

  Yes, exactly.

• 1:15:48Speaker 02

  So what do I play? I play split. I cooperate. Everyone else plays spit. I look like play steel. I play like look like such a loser. My, my classmate Anne was the only one to walk away with money because everyone else played, played steel and I played split and I looked like a fool, like I, I looked like a complete idiot on the first day of grad school. But, and I, I felt I was ruminating afterwards, even though in the time I'm like, I'm, we're doing this, right, guys?

• 1:16:13Speaker 02

  But like my naivete burned me, but then I was like, but did it burn me? Because you know, when we were doing, we, I didn't get through grad school without help, right? And, and, and like I'm disarmed, I was disarming. Nobody was threatened by the dumb girl.

• 1:16:26Jen Cohen?

  Exactly. So that's a hundred percent true.

• 1:16:30Speaker 02

  They, they helped me. Yeah, I helped them too. I think I taught them psychology.

• 1:16:35Jen Cohen?

  Right. And also though they weren't threatened by you.

• 1:16:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So I think there can be like, not to be like hyper strategic about it, but just like reflecting back. I think there is something to that.

• 1:16:45Jen Cohen?

  I think there's a lot to that.

• 1:16:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:47Jen Cohen?

  So I was going to include, when you were asking me earlier, I was super disarming, right?

• 1:16:53Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:16:53Jen Cohen?

  Because I wasn't a threat.

• 1:16:55Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:16:55Jen Cohen?

  And that worked to my advantage.

• 1:16:57Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:16:57Jen Cohen?

  Right?

• 1:16:57Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:16:58Jen Cohen?

  And I think that like, I'm a big believer in make, in using every tool you have in your toolbox to kind of go after what you want.

• 1:17:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:08Jen Cohen?

  I just do, I just think, and I don't think that's taking away from someone else's toolbox.

• 1:17:13Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:17:13Jen Cohen?

  Right?

• 1:17:13Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:17:14Jen Cohen?

  And so if you, if you can be, if you're disarming somebody and I'm, and you're not threatening, God bless you. Right? I also don't think it's a bad thing to be an opportunist.

• 1:17:23Speaker 02

  No, not at all. As long as you're like sincere and not like.

• 1:17:27Jen Cohen?

  But what's wrong with it? Like, why can't you seek? And why can't you, uh, why, why can't you take advantage?

• 1:17:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:17:36Jen Cohen?

  Of an opportunity and seize the day or seize the opportunity.

• 1:17:40Speaker 02

  You'd be a fool not to.

• 1:17:41Jen Cohen?

  Right. It's just like, oh, you're such an opportunist. Okay. You should be too.

• 1:17:45Speaker 02

  I think because sometimes when you, one says that people hear like at someone else's expense. That's not what you're saying at all.

• 1:17:53Jen Cohen?

  Exactly. And that's exactly, I had this whole. Back and forth with this person I had like a falling out with, right? Because, not because of this, but one of the things that was, what we're talking about is like, I believe that people should take advantage of every opportunity that comes their way. And they took it like, well, at whose expense?

• 1:18:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:14Jen Cohen?

  No expense.

• 1:18:14Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:18:15Jen Cohen?

  You're the one, you're the one who's adding on to that sentence.

• 1:18:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:18:18Jen Cohen?

  You know, at someone else's expense.

• 1:18:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:20Jen Cohen?

  Which makes me think that's your personality trait.

• 1:18:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:18:23Jen Cohen?

  Me, I'm just saying, life is like, it's like, it's basically a zero zero game.

• 1:18:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:29Jen Cohen?

  Right? Not like a zero sum game. I'm not, I'm not competing against you and vice versa. Like, I don't really care. But whatever opportunity is coming my way, I'm going to try to seize seize it.

• 1:18:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:37Jen Cohen?

  And you should too. And that's what my point was earlier, like, you've got to be resourceful, you've got to be gritty, you've got to make everything work for your advantage.

• 1:18:43Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:18:44Jen Cohen?

  Not at the expense of anybody else.

• 1:18:46Speaker 02

  And, and a core of that is like, understanding you and like what your secret capabilities are, like what unlocking your potential and trying by doing things, you learn like, ooh, I'm really, really savvy and really good at this and I'm.

• 1:18:58Jen Cohen?

  And I'm not so great at that.

• 1:18:59Speaker 02

  So do more of the good thing and mitigate the bad thing.

• 1:19:02Jen Cohen?

  And maybe not do so much of that thing. I mean, by, I don't even know what we're talking, we're like also.

• 1:19:06Speaker 02

  I know, yeah, sorry.

• 1:19:07Jen Cohen?

  We're so off, how long has this been?

• 1:19:15Jen Cohen?

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• 1:19:57Jen Cohen?

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• 1:20:23Jen Cohen?

  Okay, I wanted to ask you a couple of other questions and then we can like wrap this.

• 1:20:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:28Jen Cohen?

  Although I guess we talked about leaders, we talked about actually confidence flexers. Have we talked about that?

• 1:20:34Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:20:35Jen Cohen?

  Let's talk about confidence flexers really fast.

• 1:20:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:20:37Jen Cohen?

  And I, I, I really like the Shark Tank example because I watch Shark Tank.

• 1:20:42Speaker 02

  I love Shark Tank.

• 1:20:43Jen Cohen?

  I love it too.

• 1:20:44Speaker 02

  I love Mr. Wonderful.

• 1:20:45Jen Cohen?

  Mr. Wonderful. They're all great.

• 1:20:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're all have, I love, I know they all have their unique and they work so well together. I love them.

• 1:20:52Jen Cohen?

  They work really great together.

• 1:20:53Speaker 02

  Actually, is that their, I feel like it's so authentic, like it's their, maybe an exaggerated version, but like it feels, it rings.

• 1:20:59Jen Cohen?

  They feel authentic.

• 1:21:00Speaker 02

  They do.

• 1:21:01Jen Cohen?

  By the way, the ones I've, I've had on, I think they're great. I love, Rob's a Canadian. Well, he's more like, he's not like his, where's, no, he's from somewhere else. Where's he from? Not Ukraine, no.

• 1:21:11Speaker 02

  No, no, oh my gosh, I should stop talking.

• 1:21:12Jen Cohen?

  Croatia, no, no, no, no, no.

• 1:21:13Speaker 02

  That sounds closer.

• 1:21:14Jen Cohen?

  No.

• 1:21:15Speaker 02

  Bosnia, Herzegovina?

• 1:21:18Jen Cohen?

  Cut this, cut this. Not Bosnia. Where is he from?

• 1:21:22Speaker 02

  Tip of my tongue.

• 1:21:24Jen Cohen?

  Croatia, it says.

• 1:21:25Speaker 02

  Oh, you got it. You nailed it.

• 1:21:26Jen Cohen?

  Are you, I don't think that's right. Is it? Okay, maybe it is. But then he, he immigrated to Canada, so I feel he's one of us.

• 1:21:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And he has the Canadian, you can hear the about.

• 1:21:35Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:21:36Speaker 02

  So he counts, yeah.

• 1:21:37Jen Cohen?

  My point is, I really liked it. I like the example that you use and I believe, I, whenever I watch the show, I notice that the ones who are overly confident on the show.

• 1:21:45Speaker 02

  And dismissive of like these superstar experts.

• 1:21:47Jen Cohen?

  But, but in general, like I feel like they don't like the people who are overly confident.

• 1:21:52Speaker 02

  For sure, yeah.

• 1:21:52Jen Cohen?

  They want the people who are more like, like kind of like have that like feeling of they admit when they're wrong. What would you call that?

• 1:21:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, um, real.

• 1:22:01Jen Cohen?

  Humility.

• 1:22:02Speaker 02

  Humility, that's humility. And that takes confidence. That's like, you have to be, actually be confident to admit that you don't know.

• 1:22:09Jen Cohen?

  100%. Like that, I think overly confident is really unattractive.

• 1:22:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I agree completely, completely. And yet it is amazing in the classroom when people use, maybe not for, I don't know, for judging character, but what I see, maybe, I don't know why, maybe they're younger MBA students, but people confuse confidence with competence and knowledge.

• 1:22:34Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, there's been lots of studies on that.

• 1:22:36Speaker 02

  Right? Like, so, so it's in the classroom all the time. There will be someone who says, like, Something like word salad, but eloquent and super confident, but like zero substance. And people are like enthralled and then someone who's less, much less confident and puts up their hand and not in a loud voice and they're like crazy smart. And I'm like, yes. So, so then I'm trying to, I try to in less overt ways, because if you're overt about it, then it's not good. But I try to echo the person who like repeats. So what Suzanne is saying is it sounds like, right? And kind of ignore the, but it is, but the, um, it's, it's frustrating to me that people confuse the two so much.

• 1:23:19Jen Cohen?

  Well, confidence and confidence are, the people who are confident, I feel, are usually com- they're usually, they're usually go together. They're usually the most competent.

• 1:23:28Speaker 02

  They often go together.

• 1:23:29Jen Cohen?

  But a lot of times, the most confident, a lot I've seen in my own history, that you could be a really good orator and fake confidence.

• 1:23:38Speaker 02

  Completely.

• 1:23:39Jen Cohen?

  And be a complete ninny in real life.

• 1:23:41Speaker 02

  Yes, 100%.

• 1:23:42Jen Cohen?

  And I think that that happens a lot also.

• 1:23:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:46Jen Cohen?

  And so I think this goes under this whole umbrella of like likability, right?

• 1:23:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:50Jen Cohen?

  I think that the people who are the most likable

• 1:23:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:53Jen Cohen?

  may not necessarily be the most competent.

• 1:23:56Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:23:56Jen Cohen?

  But they have these other qualities that draw you in.

• 1:23:59Speaker 02

  Right. It's, yeah.

• 1:24:00Jen Cohen?

  And I was gonna say, there's a whole study that's on how, you know, VCs give money to the most likable, not necessarily the most, the best business.

• 1:24:09Speaker 02

  And that's not wrong, right?

• 1:24:11Jen Cohen?

  Well, it's not, but listen, if I'm giving someone $20 million.

• 1:24:15Speaker 02

  They need to be competent.

• 1:24:16Jen Cohen?

  I would like them to be competent.

• 1:24:17Speaker 02

  They need to be competent. But yeah, I mean, surely it's wrong sometimes, but it's, I would say, you would probably agree, it's also wrong to, like, likability does matter. And when in terms of the person's ability to lead, being likable does matter.

• 1:24:30Jen Cohen?

  It matters more than anything else. It's the most underrated

• 1:24:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:24:33Jen Cohen?

  superpower, I think that there is.

• 1:24:35Speaker 02

  Preach, girl. Yeah.

• 1:24:36Jen Cohen?

  I do believe that to be true.

• 1:24:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. We're like aggressively Canadian right now.

• 1:24:40Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, exactly. We're super, super Canadian.

• 1:24:43Speaker 02

  But the confidence flexing, sorry, I went on a tangent there. Um, so the confidence flexing, it's like our instinct is often to, to project confidence when we are not actually, um, when, when we feel really weak and it doesn't, it doesn't really work. A funny example of it, um, the thing is it's sneaky because It kind of creeps up on us.

• 1:25:09Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 1:25:09Speaker 02

  When I was, I'm not a good driver. Don't ever get in a car with me.

• 1:25:13Jen Cohen?

  Oh, God.

• 1:25:13Speaker 02

  When I was

• 1:25:14Jen Cohen?

  Go back for your kids.

• 1:25:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know, I know. Well, my husband almost always drives. I know, he's like, oh, the patriarchy. But definitely, he's a good spy driver. But yeah, so when I was taking my driver's test, this is so absurd, but it illustrates the point. I took a left-hand turn and I neglected to look for pedestrian and the adjudicator said, who had the right of way there? And I knew that the passenger, pedestrian did, but I just confidently was like, I did. Like as if that erases everything, right? It's like as if you, and so that's an absurd example, but it shows how like

• 1:25:58Speaker 02

  wrong this is, but how we often default to it, right?

• 1:26:02Jen Cohen?

  We all do because I think it's out of defensiveness.

• 1:26:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, defensive. It's totally, it's totally brought him on by defensiveness. Yep.

• 1:26:08Jen Cohen?

  And so what is your point, though? Was there a point?

• 1:26:10Speaker 02

  Oh, I was just explaining what a confidence flex is.

• 1:26:13Jen Cohen?

  Okay, okay. Like, is there another point? Okay, I thought you were gonna-

• 1:26:17Speaker 02

  It's not effective. Confidence flex, no good.

• 1:26:18Jen Cohen?

  It's not effective.

• 1:26:19Speaker 02

  Not effective. Not effective. Not a good flex.

• 1:26:22Jen Cohen?

  I don't know. It's late in the day. I mean-

• 1:26:24Speaker 02

  I didn't have caffeine in mine, so yeah.

• 1:26:26Jen Cohen?

  Exactly. I have way too much caffeine, but, okay, Leslie, we gotta wrap this. So where do people find you?

• 1:26:33Speaker 02

  Oh, they can find me online. My website is drlesliejohn.com or on Instagram or LinkedIn, proflesliejohn.com.

• 1:26:42Jen Cohen?

  Okay, proflesliejohn. Okay. The book is called Revealing and it is about the underrated power of oversharing.

• 1:26:52Speaker 02

  Yes. You're like, or is it the overrated power of oversharing?

• 1:26:55Jen Cohen?

  Exactly. Read it and find out. Thank you for being on the show. I appreciate it.

• 1:27:00Speaker 02

  Thank you so much for having me. It's been so wonderful.

• 1:27:02Jen Cohen?

  So fun.

• 1:27:03Speaker 02

  Yay.

• 1:27:04Jen Cohen?

  Bye, guys.

• 1:27:04Speaker 02

  Bye.